It’s been a frigid couple of weeks in the high Rockies of Colorado. I enjoy the cold stillness of winter in the mountains, but this cold snap has me thinking about warmer days and it’s given me time to go through some photos I took last summer.
We took a drive to visit a cemetery near Fairplay to get a feel for the place for a story idea that’s been kicking around in my head. The weather was perfect and the scenery was stunning. The setting was vibrant with green and flowers, and as equally serene with headstones and unmarked graves.
There’s a certain energy in these quiet places. A mixture of melancholy, memories, and natural beauty. I can’t read the dates and not think about the history, the love, and the loss portrayed on the weathered stones. As always, too many of the graves belong to children. Others were soldiers, business men, housewives, miners, cowboys, wanderers—all of them pioneers.
I stand under the aspens, their quaking music and rich scent on the breeze, and look from the graves to the mountains beyond to find the grandeur of the Old West is still here. The just and the unjust, the right and the wrong, the triumph and the tragedy are engraved in the marble and linger in the trees. Time moves on and many are forgotten, but their stories are still here, waiting to be heard.
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